Chapter Text
“Did you ever hope for anything like this, between us? Before?” Rose’s question is soft and quiet, but manages to be loud in their small three room apartment bedroom, the television turned too low to provide an adequate buffer for it.
The Doctor lay next to her under the covers, their feet tangled up close and comfortably. He shifts and looks at her inquisitively and yawns, lifting his hand to rub her bare shoulder gently. “Honestly? Couldn’t let myself hope to hope. There were times I let myself get carried away with flights of fancy, but… they were times long past, by that point.”
“On Gallifrey?” Rose asks, her brown eyes wide and receptive. Even nowadays, years separating them from his initial arrival, it’s rare for the Doctor to be too open about these sorts of things. Nearly less, Rose wonders at times. A desire to move on? To be rid of the past, and focus on their future? Maybe, but that doesn’t rid her of her curiosity. "Plus, it's not good for ya!" the Doctor has gotten accustomed to filling in for Rose when they talk about anything adjacent and he clams up. Still, she tries her best to be patient.
Because she knows he's still hurting, even if he pretends he's not. So sometimes the best she can do is try to wiggle what little she can out of him, and love him for it.
“Mm. Doesn’t always feel real anymore. Just like the idea of us settling down, back then. A pipe dream. Merely flashes of picket fences and HOA’s knocking down our doors and finding the most obnoxious loopholes around their rules I plausibly can. Like the aforementioned fences. I think I should be able to have a 10 foot tall fence if I so deem it necessary, and I wouldn’t hesitate to put half of it underground to make it happen.”
Rose huffs a little laugh, settling her head in the crook of his neck and closing her eyes, comforted in the slow rise and fall of his chest. “You'd really show 'em, wouldn't you?” The Doctor responds with a little sigh and a smile.
“Anyway. It feels like a miracle, to me. I’ve… never known this sort of peace. Not for several faces, anyhow. I have you to thank for it.” The Doctor lifts up Rose’s face to give her a kiss, and they curl back up together, falling asleep in one another’s arms.
Neither would know how little of a miracle the next day would feel.